Manu Ginobili closed the book on his San Antonio Spurs and NBA career Monday, with a retirement announcement after 16 seasons. With four championships and other accolades behind him, it made for a potential Hall-of-Fame career.
Why did Ginobili step away, though? He elaborated in a penned letter on La Nacion, translated into English via Google Translator.
Ginobili said he waited for something to “wake” him to continue playing, which led to workouts to try to prep for the season. However, after he saw the younger players and realized ailments from the 2017-18 season were still in play, it only pushed towards Monday’s announcement:
It is that [Gregg Popovich] still wanted to leave that option in case to return to San Antonio something would wake me the desire to continue and call me back to the court, but the opposite happened.